My Thoughts on Faith, Theology, Politics, and Government

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This and That 12-29-12

“Touch Not The Lord’s Anointed” – Love demands that I rescue those whom I love from danger. So, if the preacher who has gone into immoral living or heretical teaching is someone I have a personal relationship with, love ought to compel me to talk with him privately with a view to restoring him to biblical orderliness. However, where his repentance is not as notorious as his sin, or I do not have such a relationship with him, or his heretical teachings or immoral life have become too widespread and are ruining the faith of many, the same love should compel me to oppose him publicly and thus restore the faith of many. Hence, love should cause any true preacher of the word not to keep quiet when the faith of many is being ruined, as is the case today in Africa. – Conrad Mbewe

Calculating Christmas – Rather, the pagan festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Son” instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Thus the “pagan origins of Christmas” is a myth without historical substance. – William J. Tighe

Ten Comforts When Loosing a Child – Last week I had an opportunity to counsel a dear couple in Ontario who recently lost a child. Afterwards, they asked me to write out the thoughts I gave them that God could use to comfort them. Perhaps these can be of help to others as well: – Joel Beeke

Sexual Iconoclasm – This is why the consequences for fornication in Scripture are so severe. The man who leads a woman into sexual union without a covenantal bond is preaching to her, to the world, and to himself a different gospel. He is forming a real spiritual union, the apostle warns, but one that is of a different spirit than the sanctifying Spirit of God in Christ (1 Cor. 6:15–19). – Russell Moore

You Are Not “Just a Sinner Saved by Grace” – “Trevin, you are not just a sinner saved by grace.” He was preaching now. “You are also a saint indwelled by the very Spirit of God!” Don’t dishonor the Spirit. – Trevin Wax

Five More Myths about Bible Translations and the Transmission of the Text – The evidence, in fact, that the deity of Christ is to be found in the original New Testament is overwhelming. A look at some of the early papyri shows this. In passage after passage, the deity of Christ shines through the pages of the New Testament—and in manuscripts that significantly predate Constantine. For example, P66, a papyrus from the late second century, says what every other manuscript in John 1.1 says—“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It predates the Council of Nicea (AD 325), which these skeptics claim is the time when Constantine invented Christ’s divinity, by about 150 years! P46, a papyrus dated to c. AD 200, plainly speaks of Christ’s divinity in Hebrews 1.8. The list could go on and on. Altogether, we have more than fifty Greek New Testament manuscripts that are prior to Constantine’s reign. Not one of them denies the deity of Christ. – Daniel Wallace